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Comment by bitmasher9 | Hacker News Reader

The upcoming generation will be plenty happy with factory jobs instead of jobs in supercomputing or science.

I know you’re being facetious, but I think there’s some nugget buried in this sarcasm.

One issue with our ever increasingly intellectual focused economy is that it leaves behind people who may just not be cut out for these such careers. I’m not against having these economies (I too used to work in supercomputing, with national labs), they’re very necessary, but we need to find a way for people who might not fit very well in such positions to still feel productive in society, and most importantly, still live comfortably in society. Industry and jobs need to exist for people who can’t do science and supercomputing or at least aren’t cut out for it as a career day in/out to still live comfortably.

Bringing back manufacturing isn’t the answer to that, but at some point as competition pulls the bar up so high and specific, we leave a lot of people behind, and I’m not sure it’s a good thing. They surely have plenty of other skills that contribute to society as well and even if they don’t, they should also be taken care of for at least trying. Maybe it’s just a lack of opportunity in education and training that fixes it, maybe it’s other careers that pay will, maybe it’s government subsidies, but I think plenty of the discourse now promoting these ideas like manufacturing are founded on shrinking of the middle class, and that’s partly due to how demanding it is now to live at that level of general financial security.

I have a bit of a bias in advocating more for enabling excellence than accommodating average. I will concede we have done a terrible job at sharing the harvest, but it’s often the excellent that are responsible for our harvest being so plentiful to begin with.

Expand your view of what constitutes excellence.

This is a great explanation for why "no child left behind" is not the right strategy for education.

I agree with the perspective, the part I have trouble marrying it back to is the taxpayer funding and the NSF. The excellent & the people who benefit from their work tend to have lots of money and earning opportunities and are more than capable of just funding the research themselves.

If there is a large group of people who aren't benefiting they don't need to be involved in the funding and the organising either. It is a mistake to make research subject to political pressure if there is a significant political faction who doesn't think it is worthwhile for them.

I’ve served as a reviewer for a couple of NSF panels, and one of the things I really liked about the program I reviewed for is that a lot of the proposals included collaborations with local trade and vocational schools to involve and train future technicians and operators in addition to researchers and scientists. I think that’s really important for actually succeeding at the technology transfer goals of NSF, and if I’m reading your comment it does at least partly address delivering direct value for a broader chunk of the population

No not all talented scientists are independently wealthy or have the charisma to raise VC funding. What you're advocating for is the return of the era of the "gentleman scientist" where the only people allowed to do science are those lucky enough to be born into wealth (or some other privilege e.g. extreme good looks).

Expand your definition of "responsible". Not all stories are the Heroes Journey. Its just the one that gets people to accept the most exploitation and work the hardest.

I can't tell if you actually read the comment that you're responding to because you seem to be ringing the same bell. The issue at hand is creating opportunities for people who are clearly not cut out for white collar work. Framing this as "enabling excellence vs accommodating average" is out of touch and sounds extremely arrogant.

Well they ought to learn to code /s

Or try out braindead jobs like HR /s

Jibs aside, the key issue is that a lot of folks just seem to stop learning after a certain point, even if it's their chosen occupation since decades. And it's not just limited to the factory workers themselves - how many of us have met a stubborn doctor unwilling to try out a new treatment mode, or a senior banker too stubborn to learn basic Excel functions. While those folks enjoy secure jobs regardless of their proficiency in modern technology, the folks at the lower rungs of the manufacturing ladder don't. Even if they do have the desire to learn, learning anew today has become an onerous process in most fields.

We really have a Continuous Learning problem that has to be solved here - helping people reskill or deepskill easier, if they have the mentality to improve upon themselves.

> if they have the mentality to improve upon themselves

There's the rub. In my experience, and I understand anecdata is only so useful, people that really want to keep learning more than they have to are quite rare. I doubt that group is even 10% of people. If you only surround yourself with nerds who code for fun, you are going to have an extremely biased view on this issue.

Nerds who code for fun often also have the advantage of being single and childless. One's capability for learning and self-improvement really diminishes once you have one or two small kids at home. It's pretty much like working two full time jobs until they go to school and become more independent.

Uh... I think it's more likely this is all the result of the 24 hour for-profit entertainment 'news' network which has been pushing this conspiracy theory bs for the last 40 years.

You have a media ecosystem devoted to encouraging division, inventing problems when there are none, and finding people to blame for things.

Use your eyes and ears. It's right there.

The agencies and programs paying for poor youth work preparation and education were slashed last week or so. Mind you, it was not college education, but basic skills for more manual jobs.

These were also people who would order parts from china for their niche board game or whatever. These were people working fire prevention, people whose lungs are the most affected when there are no safety and environmental regulations.

If putting fries in the bag at McDonald’s payed half as much as being a FANG engineer, I would pick McDonald’s

"The budget request explicitly states it "cuts funding for: climate; clean energy; woke social, behavioral, and economic sciences; and programs in low priority areas of science," while maintaining funding for AI and quantum information sciences at current levels."

> "and programs in low priority areas of science"

One man's low priority is another man's life-saving research.

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